Movie review: ‘Transit’ is a thrilling refugee drama

Al Alexander More Content Now

Tuesday

Mar 12, 2019 at 10:34 AMMar 12, 2019 at 10:34 AM

Apathy and the shame of not speaking up and acting out. They are as prevalent today as they were 90 years ago when Adolf Hitler began his murderous reign. And now, like then, white nationalism is spreading like a cancer through Europe, with most of the unchecked hatred visited upon “the other.” I mention this because Christian Petzold’s dread-inducing “Transit” serves as a stunning wake-up call to what will be a bleak, dangerous outcome if the “civilized” world doesn’t snap out of it - and quick. Yes, history is repeating itself.

Based on Anna Segher’s 1944 novel about Nazi Germany, and eerily transported to the near future by Petzold, “Transit” plays like an echo of the genocide of the 1940s right down to the Gestapo-like roundup of people without papers. And the only people possessing them are what society deems “pure.” Georg, a Jewish radio and TV repair guy from occupied Germany, is not such a person. He’s a fugitive, in a sense, hightailing it to Marseille, hoping to make passage to Mexico before the invading fascists seal the French ports.

Played by Franz Rogowski (a Teutonic Joaquin Phoenix) with a world-weariness you’d expect from a pauper destined for doom, Georg hits the jackpot when he comes into possession of papers allowing an Atlantic crossing. The documents (and an unpublished manuscript) belonged to a recently deceased author he opts to impersonate, unaware said writer comes packaged with a gorgeous young wife in Paula Beer’s Marie, waiting vainly in Marseille for her husband’s arrival. Neither knows the identity of the other, as they serendipitously cross paths repeatedly on the street, in a cafe, a tavern. It’s like they’re destined to connect, with shades of Barbara Stanwyck’s “No Man of Her Own.” But what the movie Petzold really apes is “Casablanca,” with all the intrigue intact, but sans the sexual heat.

Turns out Marie has a lover, a noble medical doctor who, like Georg dreams of booking it to Mexico. As luck would have it, Georg possesses a pair of boat tickets. But who will he invite: The broken but mysterious, Marie, with whom he eventually meets and falls in love? The benevolent Doc? Or, how about sacrificing the ducats to adorable 8-year-old soccer protégé, Driss (Lilien Batman), and his deaf-mute mother, Melissa (Maryam Zaree), both deprived refugees from North Africa who’ve become Georg’s de facto family? As the minutes click down to bon voyage, your pulse quickens and your involvement grows. Who will sail? And who will likely end up in a concentration camp? It’s like Sophie’s choice all over again.

Sure, it’s melodrama; but it’s great melodrama; although I could have done without the intrusive writerly voice-overs (by an unidentified observer), often describing events we can plainly see with our own eyes. It’s the lone misstep, as Petzold and his fine ensemble, particularly the charismatic Beer (“Frantz,” “Never Look Away”), create characters with whom you forge an acute attachment.

It begins slowly and builds and builds until arriving at a kick-in-the-gut climax that will leave your nerves - and your soul - shattered. Would you expect anything less from Petzold, a filmmaker who delivered equally devastating endings in 2012’s “Barbara” and 2016’s “Phoenix”?

No one is better at crafting characters stripped of country and identity. They swim against the tide, refusing to yield to authoritarianism, often to their own detriment. But they’re always bastions of strength and resolve, clinging to the one thing no despot can ever erase - their dignity.

Al Alexander may be reached at alexandercritica@aol.com.

“Transit”Cast includes Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer, Maryam Zaree and Lilien Batman. (In French and German with English subtitles.)(Not rated.) Grade: B+

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